updated 01:27 pm EDT, Wed September 12, 2012

Major upgrades over iPhone 4S

Apple today announced the iPhone 5. The device is said to be built entirely out of glass and aluminum, and is 18 percent thinner than the iPhone 4S at 7.6mm. One of its signature features though is a larger display, measuring 4 inches with a resolution of 1136x640. To accommodate the change Apple is updating all of its apps; any third-party apps that haven't been updated will display in the center of the screen. The display also uses a full sRGB color gamut, and should have 44 percent more color saturation.

Wireless support has been extended to include HSPA+, DC-HSDPA, and LTE; all of the different formats are merged onto a single chip with a single radio, and a dynamic antenna. AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon will support LTE in the US, and numerous other carriers should be supported around the world. In terms of Wi-Fi the device's 802.11n chip now supports dual-channel 5GHz.

Inside the the phone has been upgraded with an A6 processor, said to have twice the CPU performance of the iPhone 4S, and twice the graphics speed as well. Despite this, chip size has been reduced, and the 5 show have as much or more battery life, with 8 hours of 3G talk or web browsing, 8 hours of LTE browsing, 10 hours of Wi-Fi browsing, 10 hours of video, or up to 40 hours of music. Standby time is rated at 225 hours.

The camera has been advanced to use an 8 megapixel sensor, with backside illumination, a hybrid IR filter, a five-element lens and aperture up to f/2.4. A dynamic low-light mode should enable up to 2 f-stops' worth of extra light sensitivity. The lens cover is newly made of sapphire, and a better image processing chip has been added, which uses spatial noise reduction and boosts capture speeds by 40 percent. As rumored, a new panorama mode is operated by hitting a button and simply panning the phone.

Video records at 1080p, and uses better stabilization, with the additions of face detection and the ability to take photos at the same time. The front camera is now a FaceTime HD unit, supporting resolutions up to 720p; FaceTime can, for the first time, be used over a cellular link.

Audio upgrades include three microphones -- at the front, back, and bottom -- and new speakers, with five magnet transducers instead of three. The earpiece offers noise cancellation for a person's own audio-out, and Apple is using wideband sound to make calls clearer, though this requires carrier support.

A new smaller dock connector format, Lightning, uses an 8-signal design, and is also said to be reversible and more durable. An official adapter is being offered to bridge the iPhone 5 with older 30-pin accessories.

16, 32, and 64GB versions of the phone are being sold, at prices of $199, $299, or $399 on a two-year contract. September 21st launch regions will include the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. On the 28th the phone will begin rolling out further, to countries such as Austria, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, and Switzerland.

Preorders begin on Friday. Apple is promising that by the end of the year the phone will be in 100 countries and on 240 carriers.

A new smaller dock connector format, Lightning, uses an 8-signal design, and is also said to be reversible and more durable. An official adapter is being offered to bridge the iPhone 5 with older 30-pin accessories.

Oh goody, Apple giving yet another stupid name to one of its peripherals or ports or something. Oooh, so clever, "lightning", to go along with "thunderbolt"! Not that anyone will call it anything (when was the last time you ever heard anyone even refer to the dock connector of an iPod or iPhone, except to say "Oh, you need to plug it in to your mac".

Testudo has a point. Other 4" screen phones were also created by keeping the phone at the same width - and we heard complaint after complaint by Apple fans that the phones were too large, and that 3.5" was the only natural size for a phone.

It just wasn't true, but thanks to Apple coming to this party late, and behind the competition, finally the 4" screen size has been legitimized for some people.

So where is Apple's 5" screen phone? Because they are extremely popular, and ultimately choice is a good thing.

Hold on! They put this new port on this thing, Lightning, and it doesn't come with a thunderbolt cable to hook up to it? Seriously?

Only Apple could name their new port with a companion to their 'new' connection interface port on their computers, and not even make a cable to connect the two. What, no one wants to have super-fast syncing capabilities?

Really looking forward to holding one. The thinness and lightness sounds really good, will have to see how the taller design feels. Does seem like a very impressive piece of design, though.
Not sure about the look of the black one, the dual tone like back doesn't look very good in the pictures. The white seems better, but I guess I'll have to hold them in my hand first.

The new iPods sound like great updates too. Only downside was the new iTunes. New ui sounds absolutely terrible. The current album art browser thing is nigh unusable because my music collection is large (2500+ albums). If this is going to be the only option, I'm really worried about usability.

Like the 4 inch screen on the iPhone 5 is so much better. Anybody who believes the BS that Apple is stating about the 4 inch screen fitting the hand and able to be controlled easily with one hand is either an idiot consumer, an Apple fanatic, or has never used another smartphone with a 4 inch screen. Sorry, total nonsense. I used a Samsung Focus (when testing Windows Phone 7) and it also had a 4 inch screen. I had ZERO problems (and I have small to average sized hands) navigating the phone.

At some point you Apple fanatics (as opposed to use who just use Apple products....and others' products as well) need to realize that it is all just marketing BS. The new lightening connector...new and improved...whatever. What exactly does this cable bring to the table? Smaller, so? That actually puts more pressure on the logic board if the cable is twisted versus the 30-pin cable. It's reversible. Like I had any problems the last 8 years using the 30-pin connector.

As it stands, the iPhone 5 in nice, but it really is just playing catch up at this point. My iPhone 4 is under warranty until July of 2013, so I will skip this model just like I skipped the 4S. There just isn't enough to interest me. Heck, the only reasons I still have the iPhone is my investment in apps as well as I have two (2) Apple TVs and I use it as a remote. Oh, lets not forget the 10GB of music I purchased on the Japanese iTunes store, 90% of which is infected with "Fairplay" DRM. And....NO, I am not going to repurchase the songs...not with the current exchange rate between dollars and yen!!!!

I would like to have seen a standard 4 inch screen, but I guess this is fine. The only part that really bothers me is the insistence on keeping the battery life at the current levels, while only spoon feeding us a bit more power each iteration. This phone could have been the same thickness (I don't want a 20% thinner/lighter phone - I will have to put it in a case to give it some more heft) with a bigger, more powerful battery. Wow, the idea of an iPhone that could go two (2) days with heavy use....but no.

Also, the back, while aluminium (nice improvement) is FUGLY. Why the stripes? I feel like I am looking at Charlie Brown's t-shirt.

Hold on! They put this new port on this thing, Lightning, and it doesn't come with a thunderbolt cable to hook up to it? Seriously?

Only Apple could name their new port with a companion to their 'new' connection interface port on their computers, and not even make a cable to connect the two. What, no one wants to have super-fast syncing capabilities?

Why on earth would it come with a Thunderbolt cable?

The iPhone would need a Thunderbolt controller, and an intel CPU and chipset to run that controller with, for that cable to be of any use whatsoever.

And then, you'd notice that the Flash memory used in the iPhone is far slower than USB 3 can handle, anyway.

I dunno how it was for you, buy I thought the iPhone 4 was FUGLY until I first held one in my hand. Then, it turned out to be the most exquisitely machined and beautiful piece of engineering I'd ever seen.

I'm prepared for the same effect when I first see an iPhone 5 first-hand.